Larger capacitors ... what subs work?

[midwayfair]

Specifically I'm thinking of the 47uF caps in something like a Rangemaster, Orange Squeezer, or other simple drives. Are these specifically as high as 47uF for an electronic reason, or could I use, say, 33uF?

I'm asking partly because I can get Tantalum caps at Tayda for a fraction of the price of the small electrolytics at Mouser or the 47uF Tantalums at Smallbear. But the tants only go up to 33uF.

[jkokura]

Looking at the Rangemaster in particular, you've got two 47uF caps.

C5 is a power filtering capacitor. In that case, 100uF is a common value, but 47uF, 22uF and even 10uF "could" be used. Often, higher values are perferred, but there's no reason why a 33uF wouldn't work when only 47uF is called for.

C3 also works as a filter, only instead of being connected directly to ground it's going from the Emitter to ground. In this case, again I'm fairly certain that a 33uF value would be fine electrically. However, in this case you might find an impact on your sound.

In this case, because we're talking about less than 3 or 4 dollars, I would personally make the effort to find axial electrolytic caps rather than go with the less expensive tantalum parts. The only way that I might disregard my own advice was if I wanted the particular sound that another type of cap imparts. In my case, I've never really been able to hear a 'tone' difference between Electrolytic or Tantalum caps in a live band situation, so I've never worried about it.

Jacob

[midwayfair]

Looking at the Rangemaster in particular, you've got two 47uF caps.

C5 is a power filtering capacitor. In that case, 100uF is a common value, but 47uF, 22uF and even 10uF "could" be used. Often, higher values are perferred, but there's no reason why a 33uF wouldn't work when only 47uF is called for.

C3 also works as a filter, only instead of being connected directly to ground it's going from the Emitter to ground. In this case, again I'm fairly certain that a 33uF value would be fine electrically. However, in this case you might find an impact on your sound.

In this case, because we're talking about less than 3 or 4 dollars, I would personally make the effort to find axial electrolytic caps rather than go with the less expensive tantalum parts. The only way that I might disregard my own advice was if I wanted the particular sound that another type of cap imparts. In my case, I've never really been able to hear a 'tone' difference between Electrolytic or Tantalum caps in a live band situation, so I've never worried about it.

Jacob

Thank you, as always, Jacob.

I forgot to mention that my reason for asking was the physical size of the caps for fitting certain circuits in smaller cases. I realize a Rangemaster is small enough to fit regardless, but I figured I can carry this knowledge to other circuits.

I suppose with power filtering, I can also go up to 100uF, since those are generally smaller than other electrolytics anyway.

[jkokura]

Interesting, as my 100uF caps are bigger, at 6.3x12 instead of 5x11...

Jacob